The art of making rubber: Inside Vittoria’s manufacturing facilities

Words & photos by Matt Wikstrom

During the recent launch of Vittoria’s next-generation graphene, attendees were given a tour of some of the company’s factories to see how rubber is made. Matt Wikstrom was at the event and he brought back these photos and a stack of insight on the process.

Vittoria Tyres was originally founded in Italy in 1953, and for almost 40 years, the company manufactured all of its tyres there. By 1990, though, the company was in deep financial trouble, and that’s when the current owners took over the brand and moved production to Thailand.

In the time since then, the brand has thrived, arguably eclipsing its former glory with annual tyre production now counted in the millions. That includes 900,000 cotton tyres and racing tubulars that have essentially defined the brand since its inception.

In what appears to be something of a corporate convolution, the entity that is responsible for all production of Vittoria tyres is Lion Tyres. Originally based in Singapore, Lion Tyres was acquired in 1988 by the same group of investors that would come to own Vittoria, spearheaded by Rudie Campagne, a Dutch industrialist with a background in electronics.

As successful as Vittoria has become, Lion Tyres is the bigger achievement for Campagne and his co-investors. That’s because the company has been able to capitalise on its rather exclusive manufacturing capabilities (i.e. bicycle tyres) to serve a variety of other brands, some of which could be considered Vittoria’s direct competitors.

This is not something that is unusual for the bicycle industry, especially when it comes to mass production of specialised products (like tyres or carbon fibre frames). And while the potential for a conflict of interest may seem immense, Lion Tyres does not simply re-badge Vittoria tyres for its other clients. Rather, each tyre is often a unique creation manufactured according to each brand’s specifications, including the choice of distinct casing materials and rubber compounds.

Lion Tyres has several factories located in and around Bangkok that are devoted to each stage of tyre production. In simple terms, this process starts with the creation of the rubber compound(s) that will serve the tread of the tyre. Rubber is also used to reinforce the nylon or cotton casing of the tyre, too, and once it is mated with the tread, construction of the tyre is essentially complete.

Given how crucial rubber is to the construction of any tyre, it’s not surprising that Lion Tyres and Vittoria devotes a large portion of its resources to researching, developing, and manufacturing its rubber compounds. There’s an art to rubber-making, to be sure, but there’s also a fair bit of science involved, too.

Lion Tyres’ new rubber compound factory in Rayong is dubbed LTT6 because it is the sixth in its collection of manufacturing facilities in, and around, Bangkok. Two-and-a-half years were spent planning and constructing the factory before it was opened in 2017.

LTT6 resembles an aircraft hanger with several production lines that extend from one end of the building to the other. From this viewpoint, the final product, rubber compounds, can be seen wrapped in sheets of coloured plastic, ready to be forwarded to Lion Tyres’ other factories for incorporation into tyres.

Making rubber is a multi-step process that depends upon mastication, kneading, rolling, and some heat, all of which must be carefully controlled. That includes keeping unwanted particles out of the mix, hence the ultra-clean factory floor.

Mass production of tyre rubber

Every rubber compound comprises the same set of basic ingredients — natural and/or synthetic rubber, oil, and various activating, cross-linking, and filling agents — but there is enormous scope for varying the final recipe. The ingredients are mixed and kneaded like dough to create the final product, however conditions must be carefully controlled to ensure a consistent product.

The bulk of Lion Tyres’ rubber compounds are manufactured in its newest facility located in Rayong, approximately two hours south-east of Bangkok. Opened in 2017, the spacious (and ultra-clean) factory houses several large-scale production lines that operate around the clock six days/week to create tonnes of rubber every week.

These are just some of the bins of raw materials that are used to make each rubber compound, and they sit above the factory floor at the head of the production line.

The weighing of ingredients is carefully controlled by a computerised system. No names are used to refer to the ingredients, just a system of numbers, which goes a long way to protecting the composition of each compound.

There’s a kitchen-like feel to the head of the production line.

Oil is an important ingredient for making rubber compounds. Large vats of oil are positioned opposite the dry ingredients and above the mixers so that it can be dispensed directly into them.

All of the ingredients are slowly brought together to create the final compound. The plastic bags that stop the granular ingredients from spilling everywhere are designed to disintegrate during mixing.

Nom, nom, nom. The mixers that blend the ingredients together are essentially oversized dough-mixers.

The mixers can handle up to 90kg of material at a time, which obviously helps speed up production. All of this equipment creates a steady industrial hum that makes it difficult to conduct a conversation, but it’s not deafening.

Once mixed and kneaded, the compound is passed through twin-rollers to complete homogenisation. Here, a hopper of freshly mixed ingredients is being dumped onto the twin rollers.

The rubber compound is passed through the rollers several times. It must be kept warm during this process, hence the need for gloves, and loud pops often occur as bubbles of air explode. The rubber is cut and rolled up by the worker so that it can be passed through the rollers again.

The final stages of production stretches the compound out into a thick ribbon.

As the rubber ribbon makes its way to the end of the production line, it must be cooled before it can be handled and stored.

The final product, ready to be incorporated into a tyre.

Quality control is a full-time effort

Much of the manufacturing process is automated in the Rayong factory, which helps ensure a consistent product, however Lion Tyres also operates a rigorous quality control lab on-site. Samples from every batch of rubber are subjected to a series of tests before it is approved for tyre production in the company’s other facilities.

An overview of Lion Tyres’ quality control lab. A series of instruments line each side of this lab to test samples from each batch of rubber produced by the factory.

Hardness is one physical property that is tested for each compound.

Viscosity is also tested.

This instrument subjects several lengths of rubber to multiple cycles of stretching (in this instance, 5,000) to monitor the development of fatigue.

The resistance of the compound to abrasion is tested by this instrument.

Yet another torture chamber for rubber. This one exposes the compound to high amounts of ozone and UV rays to assess how readily it will perish.

Rubber extrusion

Once a rubber compound has been made for the tread of a tyre, long ribbons of the material are fed into an extruder that squeezes it into the shape of the belt that will be fixed to the casing. A single compound has traditionally served the tread of most bike tyres, but that number has been increasing in recent years.

In 2015, Lion Tyres commissioned an impressive piece of equipment capable of combining four distinct rubber compounds during the extrusion process, the only one of its kind in the world at the moment. An entire factory in Bangpoo was given over to the new extruder with a small quality control lab on-site for monitoring each extrusion.

Vittoria’s first 4C (four compound) treads were designed for off-road use, but now the company is making 4C treads for its road tyres as well.

At the head of the production line, four ramps surround the 4C extruder, one for each compound that will be used to create the tread.

Feeding the beast.

The 4C extruder has a huge appetite.

The rubber that travels up each ramp is headed for a funnel, two of which can be seen here.

The four feed lines converge at a single point where the compounds are combined for extrusion. On the right, the extruded rubber can be seen exiting the machine from what might be best described as its (ahem) anus.

The control centre for the 4C extruder. Temperature is perhaps the most important parameter that must be controlled during the extrusion process.

The shape of the extruded tread is controlled by a plate that can be swapped out as required.

Once extruded, the tread begins a long journey to the other end of the factory…

…first up a ramp…

…where it is cooled…

…by jets of water rather than air.

The tread then loops around and under the cooling passage where it is eventually collected on a large spool.

Once the production run is complete, the spool is removed and stored on a trolley.

The finished product awaiting dispatch to the next factory where it will be married with the casing to complete the tyre.

Research and development

The Rayong facility also houses a few labs that are devoted to research and development. They include a small-scale production facility for creating new or customised rubber compounds along with an array of equipment for characterising each new compound.

Large-scale equipment is on hand for assessing the performance of finished tyres, both before and after they are inflated on a rim. Rolling resistance, durability, puncture-resistance, air leakage, and resistance to UV and ozone (which causes rubber to perish) are all routinely measured, with some equipment left running for days at a time to gather long-term data for Vittoria’s tyres (as well as those from its competitors).

While it is not possible to measure every aspect of real-word use in these labs, Lion Tyres has made some pretty heroic efforts to get closer to this ideal. For example, the company has equipment for testing the grip of tyres when braking in wet and icy conditions to specifically identify new compounds that might be better suited to these conditions.

While Vittoria places a lot of emphasis on the importance of lab tests, the company also values feedback from riders in the real world. Some of this testing is carried out by professional riders, of course, but the company also has a cohort of hundreds of riders around the world to help with this effort.

A look at one end of the tyre-testing lab in the Rayong rubber compound factory.

Durability testing. The amount of weight on each wheel can be varied along with the distance that is travelled during the test. One typical combination is 70kg and 5,000km.

Rolling resistance testing in progress.

Behind the doors of this instrument, a tyre is being inflated with water to test how much pressure it can withstand.

A purpose-built stainless steel rim that meets the ETRTO standard is used for burst pressure testing. Two protocols are used: one involves slowly filling the tyre over the course of several minutes; the other employs a rapid fill. Vittoria’s tyres must withstand twice the declared maximum pressure in these tests.

Puncture-resistance testing. The size of the insult can be varied for this test to better understand how well the tyre performs.

Braking in the wet. This instrument spins the wheel up to speed then measures the amount of time spend skidding on the wet surface after the brakes are applied.

A small Banbury mixer is installed in Lion Tyres’ R&D lab for creating small batches (1-2kg) of rubber.

The rest of the small-scale rubber compound production facility.

Another small batch of rubber is almost complete.

Work in progress.

More work in progress. One of the common jobs for the small production facility is to create custom colours for Vittoria’s tyres.

At the end of this two-day tour, it was hard not to be impressed by the amount of effort that Lion Tyres and Vittoria puts into making and testing new rubber compounds. While the new generation of graphene was given a lot of promotion during this visit, it was was just one piece of a much larger picture that is easy to take for granted when shooting down the road on a new set of tyres.

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